Photo Gallery A Hacking Nightmare
German Chancellor Angela Merkel (left) looks across at Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao during a meeting in Beijing in August 2012. Relentless digital attacks purportedly from China have plunged the German government into a political dilemma. No government can stand back while another country unscrupulously tries to steal its national secrets. But Merkel also doesn't want to mar relations with one of Germany's most important international trading partners.
Executives at European aerospace and defense giant EADS recently went to the German government to warn that they had been attacked by hackers. The EADS computer network contains secret design plans, aerodynamic calculations and cost estimates, as well as correspondence with the governments in Paris and Berlin. Gaining access to the documents would be like hitting the jackpot for a competitor or a foreign intelligence agency.
German chemicals and pharmaceutical giant Bayer, whose headquarters in Leverkusen, Germany, is pictured here, has also been the subject of attacks.
In 2012, hackers attacked ThyssenKrupp (whose steel plant near Rio de Janeiro is pictured here) with previously unheard of vehemence. ThyssenKrupo told SPIEGEL the attack had occurred "locally in the United States," and that the company did not know whether and what the intruders may have copied. It did know, however, that the attacks were linked to Internet addresses in China.
Part of the building of Unit 61398, a secretive Chinese military unit, can be seen on the outskirts of Shanghai. From the perspective of German officials, the hackers' tracks point to Unit 61398, which was identified in a report by the US cyber security company Mandiant last week. The Washington-based IT firm claims the unit of the Chinese People's Liberation Army has hacked into 141 companies worldwide since 2006.
